Transference

What I feel I am having to do in order to quit smoking. I think about the movie The Clockwork Orange and how they tried to force out the cravings for ultraviolence from the movie's main character through associations. They pried his eyes open and forced him to view images while at the same time correlating them with physical repulsion. After a while, violence or participation of violence made him physically ill.

The only glitch in the process was that, during the viewing of one of these images, one of the character's favorite composer, Beethoven , was playing in the background. Afterwards, hearing Luddy Van would elicit the same reaction violence did, much to the character's chagrin .

So I emerged from the mall with a pack of cloves and lit one up. I had already peeled off my patch out of fear that my heart would explode from the overdose of nicotine. But upon lighting, it felt nauseated. The patch's effect may have played into it, but I was pissed . I could no longer go back to what had always been a pleasant vice for so many years. I was being forced into becoming a non-smoker not just mentally, but physically as well.

So now, I have to find a point of transference, one that is not just another vice. I have to find a way to let out, deal with, or re-direct the unfulfilled pleasures that cigarettes once provided me. My body won't allow me to do much else.

I ground the rest of that pack into the trashcan so that they could not be salvaged if I got weak again. I threw away my one remaining ashtray. I brushed my teeth, trying to wash away the taste, the smell, the ache of it in my chest.

Transference is one of the most important concepts in psychoanalysis. This concept refers to the process by which the analysand (i.e., patient) relates to the analyst (i.e., therapist) as if the analyst were someone from the analysand's past.

The transference experience grows over the course of an analysis. Over time the analyst will work to interpret the transference which will assist the analysand in understanding how he or she colors experiences based on past internal representations and how such representations constrain experience of self and other.

Transference is not limited to the analytic situation, but more or less occurs in all relationships in our lives. However, most analyses are designed to encourage the development of the transference. For example, the relatively silent analyst, the limited face to face contact, the 3- to 5x/week sessions, all contribute to a space that deepens a transference.

Of note, and this will take a node in itself, psychopathology can be described on a continuum from the psychotic level of ego organization to maturity. Correspondingly, the nature of the transference (and of many aspects of psychological experience, i.e., defenses, identity, etc.) differs across levels of ego organization. Consider an overly simplified example of a mother transference. To the person who is in a psychotic state, the therapist IS the mother; however, to the neurotic, the therapist is just LIKE the mother. The difference between these two experiences can be explained by a concept called potential space which was developed by D. W. Winnicott and elaborated on by David Ogden. A potential space node will soon follow.